Glass washing machines are commonly used in cocktail lounges and bars for rapid and efficient cleansing of soiled beverage glasses. In the use of such machines it is necessary to spray the soiled glasses thoroughly with cleansing and sanitizing materials. Typically, the glasses are held in a wire rack or tray located in a spray cabinet and a rotating cleansing spray is directed against the glasses through the bottom of the rack to clean them.
A glassware washer is known having a cabinet with a stationary rack located above rotating spray arms that direct cleansing sprays upwardly through the rack to impinge on the soiled glasses. The cabinet includes a hood having oppositely disposed entry/exit side doors through which individual racks of glasses can be successively shuttled into the hood for cleaning and then removed through the exit door for drying. However, the use of rotating spray arms leads to loss of water through leakage where the arms are mounted on a support spindle and requires a relatively large water pump to generate a cleansing spray effective to clean the glasses. Use of the large water pump increases the power consumption and the cost of the apparatus. The rotating spray arms cause a good deal of the water sprayed therefrom to be hurled outward by centrifugal force. As a consequence, such water accomplishes no cleansing function and solid entry/exit doors must be employed to avoid loss of the cleaning liquid as a result of such centrifugal force.
A glass washer also is known having a cabinet with a rotatable, spoked drive wheel located above an underlying stationary spray box that directs a fan-shaped cleansing spray upwardly through the rack against the glasses thereon as the rack is rotated by the spoked drive wheel. For the sake of energy efficiency as well as conservation of equipment costs, a small water pump is used to provide the water pressure needed in the spray box to generate the fan-shaped spray from a plurality of spray nozzles on an upwardly facing surface thereof. A box-shaped hood or cover is positioned directly on the base cabinet so as to confront the rack and the spray box in a manner to confine and return the spray to a reservoir in the cabinet. The hood includes a lowermost peripheral lip that is supported on a peripheral shoulder formed about the cabinet. A solid access door is provided on a front side of the hood, through which door an individual rack containing soiled glasses is loaded and then unloaded after cleaning.
The glass washer just referred to is compact and designed for rapid, efficient cleansing of glasses especially as required for use in bars. However, there is a need for a washer of this type having a higher glass cleaning capacity while retaining its relatively compact size and low power consumption that are of prime importance to the bar operator.